


Lingering Hallucination

by MarsDragon



Category: Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku | Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-23
Updated: 2006-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsDragon/pseuds/MarsDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this continued much longer, Richter was sure he would go mad, if he hadn't already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lingering Hallucination

If this continued much longer, Richter was sure he would go mad, if he hadn't already. It wasn't getting any more worse, but it was wasn't getting any better either. He felt faint touches across his back and heard soft words though he could never find the source.

He felt like he was being haunted.

That was silly, of course. Neither he nor Maria had been able to find even the slightest hint of ghosts around him. The hunter wished it WAS ghosts, since ghosts, while insubstantial, were much easier to fight. This...he wasn't quite sure what it was. Some lasting impression Shaft had left on his mind? Or just his own memories turning against him? Richter rather feared it was the latter.

It had even interfered with his hunters work. Dracula was gone, yes, but his evil took awhile to fade from the world, and the recent half-resurrection had merely extended the time. He had been fighting a small group of varied creatures with Maria, and they were almost done when he heard someone right behind him, speaking with a familiar icy contempt. Richter couldn't remember the words exactly, but he had spun to find the source before he could think. It was just enough time for the sword-wielding skeleton to knock him to the ground and raise its half-rusted sword to stab him before Maria managed to destroy it.

After, when he had picked himself off the ground and brushed away the faint remnants of the memory of sharp nails on his neck, Maria spoke to him. The hunter could still remember her cautious, worried expression exactly as it had been that day. "Richter...I think you should go home."

He had sighed. Maria had many virtues, but tact was not one of them. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I thought I heard something, was all." Was that a ghostly chuckle floating through the small clearing? Could Maria hear it too?

"Thought you heard something? Is that all? You've been distracted ever since you've come home. Annette told me." Richter quietly cursed his wife and their adopted sister's closeness. "Richter, I've had to save you so many times already. We watch each others backs, yes, but it isn't all just being overwhelmed."

"Hey, Maria, that's not fair. You've pulled me out of the fire maybe three times today, and - "

"That's a lot for you!" They had stared at each other in silence, each trying to work down the other with the strength of their gaze. The moment stretched long between them and Richter couldn't tell if the coldness brushing down his spine was nervousness or another part of his mad haunting. In the end Maria sighed and looked away first before speaking. "We can't continue like this. You know that. If you keep being distracted...at some point, I won't be there and we can't have that yet." She looked back up at him and smiled gently. "Go back home to Annette. You need to concentrate on other things first, and you know what I'm talking about, so don't make me get too explicit. I can take care of things here."

He had raised his voice in protest as she gently pushed him back, unwilling to give up his life that easily. "Maria...Maria please. I'm a hunter, I can't change that."

"Well perhaps you should start being a husband and a father too, hmm? That's just as important." The huntress saw his unwillingness and pushed him again, smiling with a cheerfulness neither of them felt. "I'll be fine, Richter. Go home and get this all sorted out first. I promise I'll leave a few monsters for you." And before he could raise his voice in argument again she spun and dashed off deeper into the woods faster than he could follow. He was all alone with nothing else to do but to go home. She was right...but God he didn't want to admit it.

He had walked to the cliff first, the one with the perfect view of the ruined castle. He had stood there many times in the past, both to make sure it was still ruined and to watch it fall. It was still ruined. He watched it for awhile, a cool breeze blowing past and two cold immaterial arms around his waist, until he lost all patience and yelled across the gap between him and the far castle, "Out of here, monster! You have no claim on this world any longer!" There was no reply but the wind and the arms tightening around him.

After awhile, there was nothing to do but go home. Annette had welcomed him happily and accepted the reason for his being home early and without Maria without much complaint at all, even a little eagerness. And their life had settled into a pleasant enough domesticity...but for the ghost-feelings Richter had, even now.

He found himself almost used to them now. If he said something about God or religion, he was sure to hear faint, contemptuous mocking a moment later. If he sat idle with a book cold hands would grip his wrists and he had the feeling of someone reading over his shoulder. If he made a quiet comment to himself half the time he would hear a reply. He had absent-mindedly carried on a conversation this way a few days ago for nearly half an hour before realizing he was talking to no one but himself. After that he made doubly sure to ignore the taunting replies.

Lucky for him, no one seemed to notice, or at least they paid no attention. Richter was sure there was plenty of gossip in the servant's quarters about their master's odd behavior, but no one had been disturbed enough to leave. Working under a Belmont carried with it the implicit idea of very odd occurrences, he supposed. Annette had known something was wrong for awhile, and though she hadn't said anything to him yet he could read it in the worried looks he saw her sending him out of the corner of his eye. She'd always turn away just as he started to look back, but he could tell it was bothering her and that was quite possibly worse than the curse itself, if it even was a curse. He did his best to appear better in her presence, ignoring the soft touches and whispered words he had to be making up himself by this point, but she was too sharp even for him and he couldn't keep up the pretense all the time. He just hoped she wouldn't ask about it. It wasn't something that was easy to explain.

Especially when he lay beside her in bed, holding her close with the feeling of cold flesh pressing against his back and wondering crazily if it counted as a menage de trois if two of the three didn't even know one was going on. He couldn't remember if anything had happened in the castle or if this was merely more of his insanity, but this spirit of Dracula that had taken over his life was certainty doing his best to make him think the former was true. Richter tried to keep his own doubts strong, but for now all he could do was hold Annette and pray.


End file.
